


unmei no akai ito

by hypereuni



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Gen, Psychological Horror, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-04-19 13:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14238303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypereuni/pseuds/hypereuni
Summary: Itachi, clan murderer and S-class missing-nin, looks down at his left arm, and…there’s a trail of red thread spooling down his leg and through the village.Red string of fate AU. Itasaku.





	1. Chapter 1

**Beta'ed by the wonderful enemyanemone.**

* * *

Something doesn't feel quite right.

There's an aching sensation in his left pinky as if there's a rubber band wrapped tightly around the digit. Uchiha Itachi, mass murderer and Akatsuki member, looks down at his hand and he…

He swears he sees a flicker of red on his ring finger. But then he blinks again, and his finger is bare save for the odd scar and callus from throwing kunai.

Probably nothing, he decides. He's been seeing floaters in his eyes recently, probably from overusing his Sharingan.

Still, he sleeps fitfully that night.

* * *

He feels a stronger tug on his hand a few days later when he's out shopping for groceries in Ame. Aside from him and Kisame, there's no one else at the base, and since Kisame stands out like a frostbitten thumb, it's Itachi's lot to grab supplies from town.

Itachi looks down at his left arm, and there's a trail of red thread spooling down his leg and through the village.

He jerks his hand reflexively back from the peach he's about to buy and the old woman manning the fruit stand quirks her brow.

Ever the gentleman, Itachi drops a few formal apologies before making a hasty retreat from the marketplace to the grove of trees a little ways away from the village gates. It won't do to blow his cover, not when he's sacrificed so much to get to where he is now.

When he's sure that no one is around, he casts the requisite concealment jutsus before slumping down at the base of a tree.

He eyes the red string around his finger in horrified fascination.

No.

This-this couldn't be possible. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not after everything that's happened to him over the past few months.

The gods were surely laughing at him, because Uchiha Itachi shouldn't have a soulmate, not when he hasn't been able to protect anyone near him. Not his parents. Not Shisui. Not Sasuke. Itachi has the touch of death, after all.

The thread tightens around his finger again almost mockingly.

He somehow finds himself wandering to the small creek at the edge of the woods. It's thankfully empty save for the few squirrels that chitter at him angrily before flirting their tails and scampering away.

He hunches down and stares into the water. Shisui had taken his own life in the Naka River, which meanders through Uchiha territory and thus is far, far away from his current location. Nevertheless, all waters come together at some point, and Itachi consoles himself with the thought that a part of Shisui is presently in this creek.

I don't deserve a soulmate, he tells his cousin. I don't want to ruin another person's life. What do I do?

As always, Shisui doesn't say a word and simply regards him quietly through the hollows of his eye sockets.

Itachi lingers there until the waters darken with the reflection of the star-filled sky.

* * *

_I won't listen to you_ , he later tells the cord that encircles his finger.

It doesn't respond.

By this time, he's accepted the fact that the string won't come off; it tenaciously clings to his skin and refuses to let go, even after he's scrubbed hard enough to draw blood. He could probably just ignore his soulmate. After all, there are babies born without the red strings and people whose soulmates pass long before they themselves do. Anbu is full of broken halves whose soul strings dangle limply from their fingers, and there they are reforged into lethal weapons, shards of soul honed into sharpness.

Still, he hates this.

Why him? Why now, of all times? He's been functioning perfectly well without the damned string for fifteen years. How is he supposed to accept that there's another person with the other half of his soul, an innocent who now shares the blood and the sins that still stain his hands? At least for him, there is salvation in the form of a vengeful brother seeking retribution for the murders of his loved ones. For this child (it must be a child; why else would the string appear so late in his own life?), there is none. After all, how would they find salvation when they have no sins to repent, when the darkness that stains their soul is not due to their own actions?

Itachi just hopes desperately with his whole heart that the distance between his soulmate and himself is sufficient enough that the soul connection isn't active. His past memories are what deepen the shadows under his eyes and startle him awake at odd hours during the night: eyes wide, heartbeat erratic, breaths shallow. He doesn't wish the same fate on his soulmate, whoever they may be.

Still, it's odd that no one other than Itachi himself can see his soul string.

Sometimes, when he's off-duty and he's sitting cross-legged on top of the Akatsuki base at night, the lurid red of the string turns a vibrant shade of pink under the moonlight. When he tries to ascertain if Kisame can see it too, his partner just stares at him.

"Hmm?" Kisame says, blinking beady black eyes at his partner. "What string? Is this an Uchiha joke? You're pulling my leg, right?"

Itachi counts it as a blessing. Such blessings are few and far in between, and his soulmate will need every one of them to survive in this wretched world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Beta'ed by enemyanemone.**

* * *

Sakura is nine when she wakes up to find a red string around her right pinky.

Her parents give her hesitant smiles and apprehensive looks at each other when she shows them her hand at breakfast. “That’s very nice, dear,” her mother finally says, and Sakura brightens. She’s seen the red threads on the hands of passerby on the streets and heard about them from the whispering of older girls.  _ Unmei no akai ito _ , they giggle behind their hands. Red strings of fate, that connect soul mates through space and time.

Sakura wonders why Tou-san tells Kaa-san, in his Angry Voice, to stop telling his daughter stories after they send Sakura out to buy milk and eggs from the grocery store, and why her mother just bows her head in weary acceptance. It probably has to do with the fact that Tou-san doesn’t have anything on his pinky. Kaa-san does, but the short, fraying string that encircles her finger is bleached white, unlike the long trailing red strings that loop around the hands of couples.

“Red strings of fate don’t exist, silly girl,” her father sniffs from behind his newspaper later that day. He turns a page. “Go bother your mother, I’m busy right now.”

“They represent true love,” her mother sighs with a ghost of a sad smile hovering on her lips when Sakura asks her. “A beautiful kind of love that you’ll only experience once in your lifetime.” She pats her daughter’s head. “Someday, you’ll see one around your own finger.”

“But Kaa-san,” Sakura protests, “I do have one. It’s right here, don’t you see?” She sticks her right hand in front of her mother’s face; the thin red thread coils around her pinky and disappears somewhere mid-air.  Her mother just sighs again and tells her to stop listening to Ami-chan from next door.

Ami just snickers when Sakura tries to show her. “Ne, Sakura,” she drawls, flipping her purple hair back. “I know you’re just jealous because I have one. Maybe this is why your eyes are so green. Now move, because I’m going to go see Kei-kun and Kiku-chan and Sadahiro-kun. You can just stay here since you don’t have a soulmate.”

She fares a little better with Ino.

“That’s so cool!” Ino tells her excitedly, bouncing up and down when Sakura tells her the news. “It’s too bad that I can’t see it.” She pouts.

“But it is really there, Ino,” Sakura says defensively, a little hurt that by the realization that even her best friend might not believe her. 

“I know,” Ino simply says. “You won’t lie to me, because we’re friends, right?” She dimples, and Sakura beams back. Ino’s father, on the other hand, looks sharply at Sakura from behind the shop counter, where he’s putting the stemmed roses into vases.

When Sakura asks her, Ino sagely agrees that soul strings represent the best kind of love, and charismatic, sun-bright Ino is always right.

Ino is  _ always _ right.

…Isn’t she?

She begins to doubt her friend when the first of many terror-filled, sleepless nights comes a few weeks after the appearance of the red thread.

It's warm, almost too warm to be comfortable in her futon, and Sakura stirs awake, eyes still closed. 

"Kaa-san?" she tries to say, but her throat is too parched for sound to come out. She could have sworn that she had seen her mother turn off the thermostat earlier that night, but she’s been wrong before. When perspiration beads on her forehead, Sakura decides to turn the heater off herself. She sleepily brushes away the sleep grit that cements her eyelids together and then freezes.

It almost smells like something’s burning. A gust of wind blows into the room—which is impossible, because her room doesn’t have any windows—and the unmistakable acrid scent of burning wood hits her like a tidal wave.

“KAA-SAN!” She cries, but nothing comes out. She rubs her eyes again. The muffled sound of screams and plaintive cries for mothers and fathers and the names of loved ones reaches her ears and Sakura curls up into a fetal position, whimpering and clawing at her eyes that refuse to open.

Sakura finally blinks them open to find herself in a world of crimson and black. She’s not inside her futon anymore; instead, she’s lying down in the middle of what looks a little like Ino’s clan compound but far wider and more imposing, except the streets are empty and most of the buildings are in ruins. It’s disorienting because there isn’t any color except the lurid red that stains the bleeding sky. White lines that sketch out the general outlines of the dilapidated buildings and the shadowy piles on the ground.

“Hello?” she mouths voicelessly into the air. Silence greets her. She drags herself to one of the dark piles that litter the compound. As she crawls closer to the pile, the white outlines focus in finer detail to reveal the figure of a man lying facedown on the ground. Sakura nearly sobs in relief.

“Hello? Oji-san?” She cautiously pokes the man’s arm. The man doesn’t respond. “Oji-san, do you know where we are? Can you help me go back home?” She pokes him again. He remains unresponsive and still.

“Oji-san. OJI-SAN,” she says. “Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP,” and she shakes the man’s arm with both hands. He still doesn’t move.

Maybe it would be better to help him breathe, a voice inside her advises, and through the haze of fear and desperation, Sakura manages to flip the man on his back. It’s surprisingly hard; until now, she has never realized how heavy an adult could be.

“Oji-san, can you breathe now?” She asks. He’ll be able to breathe now, and once he regained consciousness, he’d be able to help her get back home. Adults were always trustworthy, and this man seemed to be a clan shinobi.

“Oji-san?”

She turns her head to look into the man’s face, and screams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Beta'ed by the wonderful enemyanemone!**

* * *

Sakura bolts awake, sweat trickling on her brow, heart thudding furiously against the walls of her chest. She's back in her room.

She startles when someone raps on the door.

"Sakura? Breakfast is ready. Open the door."

A pause, and then a sigh when no one replies.

"...Still sleeping in, I see. I'll leave this out here for you, then," her mother's voice floats from the other side. Something gently clinks on the wooden floorboards.

Sakura pulls the covers over her head.

She doesn't want to see anyone.

* * *

"Sakura? Sakura, darling."

Her mother knocks on the door for the third time.

"Sakura-chan. Sakura?"

The doorknob jiggles futilely.

"Dear, can you help me open Sakura's door? I'm getting a little worried."

"What's wrong with that girl?"Another voice grumbles from downstairs. It's Tou-san's voice, but today it sounds weird and distorted and deep.

It sounds like  _him_.

"I'll go take a look." A chair scrapes across the floor downstairs.

Sakura flinches and burrows deeper into the blankets, desperately trying to make her body smaller, unseen. Beads of sweat start trickling down her neck into her pajamas. It's hot, but she can feel herself starting to shiver. Her teeth begin to chatter. She covers her ears with her hands, but the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the staircase to her room trickles through her fingers.

Thump, thump.

Thump, thump.

Go away go away  _GO AWAY_ , she screams internally. In the darkness of the blankets, there's nothing but the sound of her quickening pulse overlapping with the steady thump of footsteps on the stairs.

Thump, thump.

Thump, thump.

_I-It's only Tou-san_ , a voice inside her head tries to convince her.  _B-besides,_ he' _s dead._

_N-n-no, no, not d-dead_ , she thinks, clutching her pillow, breaths ragged and uneven. Dead men didn't move. Dead men didn't weep tears of blood from empty eye sockets. Dead men didn't crawl towards her, flesh dripping off in waxy puddles to expose the white bone inside.

" _Sa-ku-ra," the Man whispers. He grins at her with gleaming, white teeth still unblemished by the rot and decay that comes with death. His lips have rotted off to expose all of his teeth, locking his face in a permanent rictus of amusement._

_He has no eyes._

" _Sa...ku...ra."_

_He knows her name._

_The Man slowly picks himself from the ground with unpolished, jerky movements._

Get away from me _, she wants to scream, but her mouth is locked shut and all she can do is stand there, petrified, as the man steadily advances towards her. As the man's face looms closer and closer to her own, she can see grains of rice that line the festering sockets of his remaining flesh hatch into wriggling maggots before crawling into the darkness of his eye sockets._

_The man doesn't seem to mind. He fists her hair and yanks on it hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, forcing her to look up at him, before caressing her cheek with a skeletal hand._

_She feels the cold tips of stiff fingers pressed against her skin. His fingers scrabble over her skin and she begins to cry, tears trickling from wide-open eyes that refuse to blink. His clammy touch feels disgusting and gross and all she wants is Kaa-san to save her._

" _What...lovely...eyes...you...have..." The Man's teeth clack against each other. "Like...jade. So... green…." His fingers slowly inch towards her right eye._

_No, she wants to scream, they're mine, not yours, stop stop STOP-_

_-Kaa-san it hurts IT HURTS KAA-SAN KAA-SAN HURTS_ _ **IT HURTS**_   _SOMEONE HELP ME-_

_Then the pain in her right eye lessens and the Man collapses like a marionette with its strings cut loose. A diagonal cut on his back slowly darkens with blood, a shadowy figure standing behind the corpse it just cut down._

" _Burn."_

_Tongues of fire lick at the Man's clothes, and the overwhelming smell of burnt flesh permeates the air._

—… _KURA? SAKURA? Can you hear me? SAKURA_ —

Someone calls her name from a distance, but it's hard to hear; it sounds static and tinny, as if it's coming from a radio.

"...Sakura!"

"SAKURA!" The Man's voice screams. It sounds a little different and more familiar, but Sakura doesn't stop to wonder why. She  _snarls_.

* * *

"Now behave, and eat," Tou-san growls. He shifts his arm, wincing. There are thin red lines that criss-cross his arms and stand out starkly against his suntanned skin. Sakura had screamed and clawed at him like a crazed animal until her father finally wrestled her down and pinioned her wrists above her head. She doesn't go down without a fight, but there's only so much a half-starved nine year old could do against an ex-chunin.

She only calms down when she sees the blood trickling down her father's arms. Living people bled red blood. The Man didn't bleed, not even when the tree branches and shards of glass from shattered windows cut through his clothes and his pale, rotting flesh.

"Eat your meal," Tou-san repeats, looking at her with a faintly worried look on his usually stoic face. Despite how much she wants to tell him that she doesn't have the appetite, Sakura hangs her head.

"Yes, Tou-san," she mumbles automatically. When her mother also chimes in with an "Eat, dear," Sakura finally looks down at her plate.

The pink, exposed flesh of the tomato slices in the salad glistens under the dim light and leaves trails of ooze all over the wilted greens. Her mother has also added a few of the expensive imported green olives to the salad. When Sakura pokes at them with her fork, two of them roll around her plate and settle next to a wedge of tomato.

They look like eyes.

The egg timer goes off and her mother bustles off to the kitchen, murmuring something being done.

"Sakura," Tou-san warns again, this time with an edge in his voice, and Sakura flinches before jabbing some of the lettuce leaves on her plate. She raises her fork to her mouth and Tou-san stares at her until she takes a tiny bite. When her father turns his attention back to his own salad, she lowers her fork. It feels and tastes like ashes in her mouth and she desperately needs to gag but Tou-san is right in front of her, watching her eat. So Sakura remains silent and forces down the salad, sipping water in between bites.

At least the water tastes normal. She tries not to think about the dry, sooty stuff that coats her tongue and the sides of her mouth, or how it reminds her of the grey dust that whirls around in the air like snowflakes, in that surreal world of black and white and red.

Sakura takes another bite and chews furiously.

Lift fork.

Chew.

Sip.

Repeat.

Then her mother places something in front of her and everything goes to hell.

"It's...your favorite, dear," her mother says hesitantly, watching Sakura with a crease in her brow. "Hamburg steak."

The smell of cooked meat fills the air and Sakura gags. She feels the bile rising in her throat.

"Ah, meat," her father says appreciatively. "Lovely."

_No_ , she desperately wants to scream.  _No, that's not meat, Tou-san, you're wrong—it's flesh, red flesh blackened by fire and rot and swarms of flies that'll lay their small white eggs in the gaping holes where people's eyes are supposed to be_ —and Sakura sways a little in her seat.

She closes her eyes.

The buzzing of blowflies echoes in her ears.

* * *

**Questions, comments? Please leave a review! They make my day.**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: beta'ed by the talented and wonderful enemyanemone! I honestly don't know what I would do without her. SHE'S THE BEST**

* * *

 

As soon as her mother places the dish in the center of the table, Sakura vomits, doubling over, nearly toppling out of her seat. She begins to cry, tears streaming down her face. 

“Please,” she sobs. “Not my eyes. Please.” She begins to rock herself back and forth. The chair squeaks under her weight.

Her father reaches out to steady her, but Sakura flinches before his hand makes contact with her shoulder.

“Sakura?” Kizashi says uncertainly.

“Please,” Sakura mumbles, shutting her eyes. “Go away, please.”

“Sakura.”

“Hurts,” she whimpers. “Kaa-san, it hurts.” She opens her eyes again, and her blank gaze swivels towards her father. She can feel Kizashi stiffen. Her mother gasps, and something falls to the floor with a dull thud.

“…Oh my god,” Mebuki whispers. “Sakura,” and Sakura feels her mother’s hands touch her face gingerly, wiping away the wetness that’s dripping down her face. There’s just so much pain, and all she wants is her mother and her father and their embrace, because she can feel the darkness beginning to wrap its tendrils around her mind. Her vision starts to cloud, and she starts to hyperventilate.

“We’re here, darling, just stay there, okay? We’re going to take you to the hospital,” Her mother says desperately, pulling Sakura into her familiar embrace, but Sakura just shivers.

* * *

 

They end up taking her to the hospital, despite her father’s reservations.

“She keeps on repeating that she has a red string on her finger.” Haruno Mebuki tells the doctor.

The doctor is a plain man, with nondescript, brown hair and dull eyes, and an odd habit of licking his lips until they are chapped. Sakura immediately detests him. The fact that he’d been poking and prodding her also contributes to the sentiment.

“Does she?” The doctor asks absently, busy scribbling away into the yellow file. He glances down at Sakura’s hands, looking nonplussed.

“We don’t know if she’s telling the truth, of course,” Mebuki admits. “My husband doesn't believe in the strings of fate, and as for myself, I…I cannot see them anymore.” She nervously twists the bone-white thread on her ring finger and glances guiltily up at her husband, who just snorts at the ridiculousness of Konoha folk.

The doctor, still conducting a chakra scan on Sakura, hums absently. He gently pulls down Sakura’s left lower eyelid. “Subconjunctival hemorrhage likely due to heavy vomiting,” the man mutters. “The redness will clear up within a few weeks. Her vitals are completely fine. “No signs of trauma, and you say she didn’t hit her head?” His hands, flickering with green chakra, pause over her forehead. “…Huh. That’s strange. I could have sworn...”

“What?” her father asks sharply. He hadn’t let his guard down since they had entered the office. He eyes the doctor the same way he looks at Ino’s father whenever they cross paths. To say that her father was distrustful of authority is an understatement; it was the reason why he had fled to Konoha years before, after all. But Konoha valued bloodlines as much as the current Kiri regime abhorred them. New immigrants, especially children, were closely monitored for any sign of emergence, anything that would increase their value in the eyes of the higher ups. And if their parents protested…Well. It was better to acquiesce.

“…Nothing you need to worry about, Haruno-san.” the doctor says a little too cheerfully. “Sakura-chan, can you give me your hand? I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Sakura, clutching onto her mother’s skirt, reluctantly stretches out an arm towards the doctor. The red string is still there; it wraps around her pinky and trails off somewhere into the air. She tries not to think about where it ends.

“Well, I don’t see a string of fate on her finger,” the doctor says after carefully examining her hand. “But there have been exceptions.” He turns to her parents. “We’ll have to put her under further surveillance to determine the exact causes. I suspect that Sakura may be developing a new bloodline limit, but it’s too soon to—”

“No, that’s quite enough.” Sakura’s father growls. Her mother timidly places her hand on his arm to calm him down.

“Darling,” she starts, but Kizashi ignores his wife and addresses the doctor.

“Enough is enough.” he says harshly. “We are done here.” The doctor licks his chapped lips, slightly flustered.

“Please calm down, Haruno-san—”

“I will not. Sakura, let’s go.”

“Haruno-san, Sakura-chan’s case is very unique—”

Her father bolts upright from his chair and lunges at the doctor. “I told you, my daughter,” he hisses, gripping the other man’s collar, “My daughter will never be someone’s lab rat, as long as I live.”

Sasaki-sensei licks his lips again, flicking his pale tongue like a snake. Then his eyes flash. The man drops the flustered attitude as easily as a snake sheds its skin. He gives her father a small smile, and Sakura shudders at the sight.

“I suggest that you think very carefully about what would be best for your family, sir.” the doctor says softly, staring levelly into her father’s eyes. “For all you know, I could tell my supervisor about my…concerns about Sakura’s personal safety.” He eyes the jagged scratches on Kizashi’s arms. “Who do you think Konoha would side with, Haruno Kizashi-san: you or me?”

Her father snarls.

“How DARE YOU—”

“Dear, please!” Mebuki pleads, pulling her husband back from a rash decision. Sasaki-sensei just smiles placidly into Sakura’s father’s red face.

“Let go,” the doctor says, and after a long moment, her father loosens his hold on the man’s shirt, and the man takes a step back.

“I see that at least one of you catches my drift,” Sasaki says, smoothing out the wrinkles on his shirt. “So, Haruno Kizashi-san. Do we understand each other?”

Kizashi, held back by his wife, glares back at the doctor. “Fuck you,” Kizashi seethes. Sasak-sensei just gives another one of his pale, enigmatic smiles.

“See you soon, Sakura-chan,” he says.

* * *

 

After the altercation at the doctor’s office, Sakura begins to get regular check-ups at the hospital, but after a few weeks, it becomes clear that the visits are doing little to help her physical or mental state. She refuses to go outside until her mother finally convinces her that it would be alright. Her skin turns translucent and she begins to refuse her meals, which saps the strength out of her limbs. Her cheekbones jut out, making the hollows of her cheeks more apparent. She looks like a skeleton, all skin and bones and brittle, pink hair. Her clothes become loose and baggy, and eventually her mother has to buy her clothes two sizes down. In any case, this also makes her forehead look more prominent, which increases the teasing at the playground.

“Did your forehead get even bigger, Ugly?” someone shrieks when Sakura walks past the sandbox one day. It sounds like Ami; Sakura doesn’t turn to look. Ami’s soulmate, a burly boy a year older than them, snickers audibly. “Uggllyyy,” he sing-songs, and the rest of the children quickly pick it up. “Ugly, ugly forehead!” they scream. Something hits her back, and it hurts, but she keeps on walking, trying hard not to flinch. A shrill voice cackles, and suddenly there are more rocks hitting her, more and more and more, and she cries, curling up on the ground in a defensive posture.

_ Someone, please, _ she thinks, lying on the ground, shielding her head from flying projectiles with spindly arms.  _ Please, save me. _

Suddenly there’s a yelp of pain from one of her tormentors, and a familiar screech that fills her with relief. “What do you think you’re doing to my friend?” Ino comes to the rescue like a tornado, rage blazing in her sky-blue eyes. Sakura, cowering, sniffles and hides her face between her knees, reflexively crossing her thin arms over her head. She doesn’t see what Ino does next, but the volley of pebbles and the jeering voices stop.

“Cowards,” she hears Ino grumble. “C’mon, get up, Sakura. You okay?” She finally lets go, all snot and tears, so tired and so relieved that Ino is here.

But even if Ino could save her from schoolyard bullies, Ino couldn’t save her all the time. Her friend had her own parents to go back to, and there was only so much time before Sakura needed to go back to her own home.

So when it becomes time to say goodbye to Ino, Sakura reluctantly returns home, chokes down dinner, and kisses her parents good night before heading upstairs to her room. Maybe if she was awake, she wouldn’t slip into that strange otherworldly realm, she hopes. She sleeps fitfully, snatching relief in cat-naps, waiting each night for what seems like eons for the sun to rise and the shadows to recede.

But somehow, even with all of the precautions she takes, she finds herself in that monochromatic world again and again and again.

She meets new people, an old woman standing in front of a bakery, desserts in the display cases writhing with plump, white maggots; a young man, who smiles at her before jumping into a churning river; a couple, the man with heavy-set eyebrows and a stern expression, the woman heartbreakingly beautiful with a perfect oval face and long silky hair, who smiles at her kindly before coughing up blood as both of them are impaled by a ghostly sword. None of them have eyes, but blood trickles from their sunken eye sockets and down their pale cheeks. There are others, whose faces she forgets, but whose shrieks linger in her memory even after she shakes herself awake.

_ Help us _ , they beg, scream, whisper.  _ Please. Help us. _

_ Please. _

Sakura covers her ears, but nothing she can do drowns out the prolonged shrieks of the suffering, nor the hollow moans of the dead, with their fan-emblazoned clothes and gaps where their eyes should be.

She wakes up with dark shadows under her eyes and a throat hoarse from screaming.

* * *

 

Sakura’s body continues to deteriorate, but Sasaki-sensei seems to be making progress on his front. From the vague, excited hints he drops in front of her from time to time, Sakura manages to gather that whatever she is experiencing is something soulmate-related. When she first learns about it from him, she gives a small, humorless smile.

_ Take that, Ami. _

Sometimes, though, when the cries of the dead are too much to bear, she wishes that Ino were her soulmate. If Ino were with her in that world, she thinks, Ino would only need to give one big radiant smile and all of the dark spinning commas would probably disappear into the shadows where they belong. Ino would know what to do with the blood and the piles of broken bodies scattered around the abandoned compound like bags of sand. There’s so much blood that it saturates the ground and permeates the air, giving it a reddish hue. Sakura drowns in it. She wakes up with the taste of it still coating the roof of her mouth, the sickly sweet metallic tinge lingering in her nostrils and on her tongue.

But Ino belongs in the land of the living, sunshine-bright and happy. She wouldn’t bring her friend down there with her. That isn’t what friends do.

Her soulmate isn’t her friend, she savagely thinks to herself as she lies in her futon, gasping, eyes wide open, heart pounding furiously against her thin chest.

She never wants to meet her soulmate.


End file.
